Charlie Poole wasn't a particularly brilliant banjo player (although his later three-finger-style picking would set the table for the advent of bluegrass banjo a couple of decades after his death), and he wasn't the world's greatest vocalist either, but he had a certain devil-may-care charisma that made him a superstar in the string band era of the 1920s. Poole's greatest talent – aside from an ability to go on long drinking sprees and to manage to be at the center of things even in his absence – was in his song adaptations, which drew from sources outside the standard Appalachian fiddle tunes and reels, including pop, ragtime, and blues. This extensive 96-track, four-disc box set from Britain's JSP Records collects the lion's share of his recordings on Columbia, Poole's label from 1925 until his death in 1931 at the age of 39. Also included are a handful of cuts Poole made under the table for Paramount (where his North Carolina Ramblers were called the Highlanders) and Brunswick (which saw the band disguised as the Allegheny Highlanders).

Any time two greats who admire each other and are musically compatible team together, the results are usually mutually beneficial. That was true for Bill Monroe and Doc Watson, whose spirited union on this 17-song disc is a sampler of American musical styles. They ripped through bluegrass, folk, blues, spirituals, mountain tunes, work songs, reels and breakdowns. Monroe's mandolin and Watson's guitar playing were masterful, wondrous and performed without any trace of self-indulgence. Their vocals were also delivered with ease, fluidity and conviction, the product of two performers completely at ease with themselves and only interested in spotlighting the material.